Week of Anti-war Events Begins

"A week of events meant to crank up a national demonstration against the war in Iraq is set to begin
Saturday, with a 1,000-person "die-in" at the U.S. Capitol led by current and
former American troops and accompanied by taps and a mock 21-gun salute."

Protesters Advocate Civil Disobedience

By Michelle Boorstein and Allison Klein
Washington Post Staff
Writers
Thursday, September 13, 2007

A week of events meant to
crank up a national demonstration against the war in Iraq is set to begin
Saturday, with a 1,000-person "die-in" at the U.S. Capitol led by current and
former American troops and accompanied by taps and a mock 21-gun salute.

The die-in will be the culmination of a march and rally. Organizers hope the
event will spur people in the antiwar movement to move from protesting to
performing acts of civil disobedience that "get in the way of the war machine,"
said Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, at a news
conference yesterday at the National Press Club.

The group's permit with the U.S. Park Police is for 10,000 people, a source
said, but ANSWER, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, expects
tens of thousands, Becker said. More than 1,000 people had signed up on the
group's Web site as of yesterday to lie down at the die-in, he said, which is
meant to represent Americans, Iraqis and others who have died in the war.
Organizers expect the number to double or triple by Saturday.

Daily antiwar events are planned from Saturday through Friday. War opponents
are scheduled to go to Washington area military recruitment centers Monday to
try to shut them down. On Wednesday, "Pentagon Outreach Day," Iraq veterans plan
to walk through the Pentagon wearing antiwar T-shirts and talking about the
conflict.

Across the
country, war opponents are being encouraged to visit their congressional
representatives' hometown offices and not leave until someone "gives them an
explanation about the war," Becker said.

Protesters are to start gathering about 10 a.m. Saturday along the north side
of the White House, in Lafayette Square. The official rally will be from noon to
1:30 p.m. Demonstrators will march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol,
where the die-in is to take place. Police said there will be rolling street
closures along Pennsylvania Avenue.

The route will cross the jurisdictions of the U.S. Park Police, D.C. police
and Capitol Police, which said they are beefing up patrols in preparation for
arrests.

Two counterprotest groups, the Gathering of Eagles, made up of Vietnam
veterans, and the D.C. chapter of the conservative group Free Republic, also
have permits. They plan to rally at 9:30 a.m. on the Mall at Seventh Street NW
and later line Pennsylvania Avenue NW between Seventh and 10th streets.

At a news conference Monday, Gathering of Eagles spokesman Kristinn Taylor
said the group's purpose is "to not allow this generation of America's
servicemen and women to be betrayed on the battlefield and at home, as happened
during and after the Vietnam War."

But at the ANSWER news conference yesterday, Carlos Arredondo, whose son Alex
was killed in Iraq in 2004, said, "My passport says 'We the people,' and we the
people are responsible for stopping this madness." Arredondo held a folded U.S.
flag in one hand and his open passport in the other.

Other speakers included antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and Adam Kokesh,
co-chairman of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

The antiwar movement "is far from where Bush would like you to think we are,
that we are the fringe. They are the fringe. We are the mainstream," said Mahdi
Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation,
which encourages Muslim civic participation.

War opponents have carried out acts of civil disobedience since the war
began, but Becker said the die-in will be different because it was conceived by
and will be led by Iraq war veterans and their families.